Even though it’s the NFL offseason, it’s still an exciting time in the league, and the 91st annual NFL draft is up ahead. Now, the Ohio State Buckeyes football program and head coach Ryan Day are getting an exciting prediction for the draft, which is just what they need after the Buckeyes’ basketball team fell in the NCAA tournament.
The draft is set to take place from April 23 through 25 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The event has a long history, with its roots going all the way back to the 1930s, according to the NFL. The event got its start in 1934, when Philadelphia Eagles co-owner Bert Bell felt that his team was at a disadvantage in getting the best players.
“At a 1935 league meeting, Bell proposed that the NFL hold an annual player draft to level the playing field and make sure that every franchise remained financially viable,” the NFL states in their history profile of the draft. “League owners voted unanimously to adopt his proposal, setting up the inaugural NFL Draft in 1936.”
Sports analysts Nate Davis and Ayrton Ostly make their draft projections in a Monday, March 16 feature for USA Today. In the post, they have the Las Vegas Raiders picking Fernando Mendoza first, which is no big surprise, but after that, it’s all Ohio State, all the time.
Davis and Ostly have a whopping three players from Ohio State getting picked in the top 10 picks in the draft. That’s more than any other university.
The first Ohio State player they see getting selected is defensive end Arvell Reese by the Arizona Cardinals as No. 3. They also have the New York Giants taking safety Caleb Downs at No. 5 and the Washington Commanders taking wide receiver Carnell Tate at No. 7.
“They’ve added a lot of players, though primarily on offense. But with a major question at quarterback following Kyler Murray’s departure, Arizona is the proverbial team that could be at least a year away from being a year away − and maybe even two years away from being a year away,” they note of Reese in the piece.
They add, “Yet if there was a quarterback worthy of the No. 3 overall pick… then the Jets would have taken him at No. 2. And that means Arizona GM Monti Ossenfort, who traded out of the opportunity to take future All-Pro DE Will Anderson Jr. in 2023, probably needs to be in the business of accumulating blue-chip players – and Reese projects as one.”
His NFL draft profile boasts that the player “might need some runway to hit his stride, but his rare blend of traits, explosiveness and versatility could become a perfect storm of chaos once a defense decides how to deploy him.”
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